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I give you Portal 2’s Frankenturret in paper

2011-05-07

Hello, test subjects – Cave Johnson here. I give you – a paper model of the Portal 2 Frankenturret. It’s somewhat finnicky to assemble, I admit that, but it will be the best Frankenturret your desk has seen in a while, I assure you.

You may want to build more than one, though, as they are social creatures, and a single one may quickly become depressed.

Then again, you might not – considering that these take quite some time to build. If you want to assemble it, here is the template (see also instructions here):

For the perfectionists among you, here is an extra: You may have noticed that the turret heads are square cubes, and therefore it is somewhat difficult to glue the ‘face plates’ to their edges and stil get a nice curvature. If you are willing to do some extra work, you can use this alternative page 1 with curved turret heads:

A delightful template for a delightful papercraft! Have spent hours making portal papercraft, but this one did not take long. Hot glued snapped toothpicks to the insides of the legs to reinforce them so it stands up delightfully.
Lovely, and not too much of a challenge after making three companion cubes and a storage cube!

I just finished making mine- it only took three hours. I was rather surprised. :3 I used normal copier paper and it worked out fine, but something thicker would have helped so much. The legs are a little hard to stand up. Also, I was a little confused with some of the parts- such as the heads and these long rectangular cut-outs in the PDF.
It turned out well, though! 😀

This is a file for Corel Draw. You need to have Corel Draw 11 or higher installed. Version 11 is actually quite old, so you should be able to get it at a very good price. If that’s not an option for you, I suggest you download the PDF files instead – they can be printed with the free Adobe Reader.

almost finished making, the paper I used was far too thin in retrospect, sticking the cube corners down was horribly fiddly and it all sorta collapsed in on itself D: Oh well, it’s recognisable for what it is at least 🙂 thanks very much for this!
Anyone reading this who’s yet to make one, make it with thick paper/card in A3!! 😀

Hey, just made the more complicated one, it’s really not difficult, just takes a bit more time to do. Very awesome papercraft, fairly easy except for the cube corners, those turned out kinda crappy because I’m bad at gluing the tiny edges XD Either way, I’m assembling another one soon 😀 Keep up the good work, will we be seeing more portal 2 papercrafts soon? 😀

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Material list

Paper / cardstock:
I recommend 180gsm / 65lb white, matte cardstock. Check if your printer can actually process this kind of paper, but most should do fine. For the US, I recommend Array Card Stock. For Germany, I recommend this cardstock.
For other countries, look for A4 or US letter 170-190gsm or about 65lb white carstock, which is suitable for printing with an inkjet or laser printer.

Scissors / knives:
You should have both scissors and a crafting knife. Scissors are for round / irregular shapes, and knives are for straight lines and holes. For the US, these Scotch scissors and an X-acto knife can be recommended.

Glue:
Don't use sticks - they are difficult to apply to tiny pieces. Instead, use liquid glue. About any kind works, but it should be not too runny. There are glues which are white initially but transparent when set - very useful for seeing where you have already applied glue. Don't use too much glue - try applying it with a toothpick. For the US, I'd recommend Elmer's glue, for Europe Pritt Bastelkleber

Printer:
I recommend an inkjet printer over a laser printer. With laser printers, the toner forms a layer on top of the paper, which cracks when folded. With inkjets, the color seeps into the page and looks better over folds.
Almost any printer will do, but ideally use one which can handle heavy (180g) paper. If possible, use a straight paper path (some printers can be fed from the back or a special manual feed, so that the paper is not bent when going through the printer).

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